The one thing the Elizabeth Warren for president campaign cannot afford is ‘I’m With Her’ redux.
Hillary ‘the “her”’ Clinton came off as ultra-phony. She tried too hard to be something she is not — that is, likable and not an elitist. Mrs. Clinton’s attempts to seem normal were transparently clumsy. Even cringe-worthy, as when on The Breakfast Club with ‘Charlemagne the God,’ she said that she carried hot sauce in her purse.
You know, because, just like black Americans, she really loves her hot sauce.
The faux-Cherokee Senator from Harvard already has an honesty problem to deal with, just like Hillary. She doesn’t need a Witless/Senescent Boomer aura on top of that.
But that she suffers from just this sort of insincerity became clear in her first livestream, the most inauthentic aping of normalcy most of us have ever seen. And now there is ‘Warren’s Meme Team,’ a Twitter account designed to marshal young people to make ‘memes’ that will support Warren just the way Trump’s supporters Pepe-d Trump’s success in 2016.
Publicizing the notion of “saving the nation with selfies and memes” (in the words of the account) sinks Warren below Hillary down to Biden-level cluelessness. As Dave Cullen relates on Bitchute, the ham-fisted and “unintentionally hilarious” scheme “smacks of sterile, joyless corporate marketing jargon.”
If Warren loses to Trump next year, it won’t be cause of sub-par memes, of course. It will be because of mimesis — that is, mimicry — of Hillary Clinton.
Or because Warren, the self-professed capitalist, is viewed as a socialist.
Here in Virginia, it looks like we will have a soggy Halloween. But in Chicago the cold and snow may barrel in big time.
“A buckled jet stream weather pattern known as the Pineapple Express has sent warm weather from closer to the equator north to Alaska, setting records there,” we learn from The Chicago Tribune, “even as it’s forced below-normal temperatures south from closer to the Arctic and into the Chicago area.”
The Tribune notes that they are working on a new record in the Windy City. Not a new lowest temperature, but, well, “a record for coldest high temperature.” Go back over a century and a half, before all this ‘global warming,’ and “records were set in 1873 for the coldest Oct. 31 high temperature, 31 degrees, and the lowest low temperature, 23 degrees.”
What is refreshing in all this is not the chill winds, nor the snow. It’s to read multiple articles about the weather and see not one mention of greenhouse gases and man-made ‘climate-change.’
Mark Twain famously once quipped that “everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Nowadays, too many people are trying to do something about not just ‘the weather’ but about ‘the climate.’
Which, we should understand, is deceptively simple when we put the definitive article in front of the word: THE climate. When I was a kid, most climate talk referred to weather patterns in regions. Not the whole planet as one big region.
What if the interaction of different regions were the real story?
So, my Halloween treat has already been digested: the hobgoblin of catastrophic climate change has been set aside, the cold weather too strong a contrast to feed that diabolical narrative.
“The thing is, LeBron, we’ve come to expect more of you,” writes Dan Wolken in USA Today, taking the National Basketball Association star to task for his comments taking Houston Rockets executive Daryl Morey to task for having tweeted“Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
Morey’s pro-protester statement had caused a backlash against the NBA from the totalitarian Chinese government, threatening the league’s — and LeBron’s — continued access to China’s large and lucrative market of basketball fans.
LeBron James told reporters that Morey was “misinformed, not really educated” about the Hong Kong situation, before adding, witlessly, “I have no idea but that’s just my belief.”
“Yes, we all do have freedom of speech,” acknowledged James, “but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen, when you’re not thinking of others and you’re only thinking about yourself.”
Ramifications for whom? The people of Hong Kong yearning for freedom and democracy? Or was Mr. James . . . only thinking about himself?
Criticism came fast and furious. “@KingJames — you’re parroting communist propaganda. China is running torture camps and you know it,” tweeted Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse.
“Let me clear up the confusion,” responded the King of Basketball, if not public relations. “I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance.”
And then LeBron further clarified, “My team and this league just went through a difficult week. I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others. . . . Could have waited a week to send it.”
Hong Kong protesters are now burning LeBron’s No. 23 jersey.
Last Friday, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets, tweeted a graphic repeating the Hong Kong protesters’ chant,
“Fight for freedom!
“Stand with Hong Kong!”
But before I could hit “like,” he deleted it amid the massive backlash from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese companies it rules.
The owner of the Rockets, with billions in NBA business at stake, immediately distanced himself from his GM — and human rights — tweeting that, “@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets” and “we are NOT a political organization.”
Rockets star James Harden apologized on Chinese state television, adding, “We love China. We love playing there.”
Despite suggesting that it does not “Stand with Hong Kong,” the NBA did reiterate that “the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them.”
“I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China,” GM Morey penitently explained in yet another tweet. “I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives.”
On Facebook, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai posted a defense of China’s anti-democratic action in Hong Kong. “Supporting a separatist movement in a Chinese territory is one of those third-rail issues,” the Taiwan-born businessman wrote.
Let’s hope Hongkongers — for the last 18 weeks risking life and limb by demanding basic democracy, rather than totalitarian control by China — were not counting on a more steadfast commitment from Morey.
Sen. Kamala Harris successfully bears aloft the banner of Barack Obama.
As “a person of color”? Yeah, sure — but mainly by pandering to ignorant ideologues.
“Look, women are still not paid equal for equal work in America,” she said recently at a campaign stop.
The Daily Wirenotes that a few months ago she dug herself deeper:
“The law says that men and women should be paid equally for equal work, but what we know is that in America today, women on average are paid 80 cents on the dollar of what men are paid for the same work. African American women, 61 cents on the dollar, Latinas 53 cents on the dollar. And these are actually not debatable points.”
Well, these points are not debatable . . . in the sense that they have no merit, and everyone who has studied this objectively knows this. Politifacttitles its article covering her statement: “On Colbert, Kamala Harris flubs wage gap statistic.”
“Flubs” puts it lightly.
Lies is more like it.
Former President Obama surely fibbed, too, when, in 2016, he said, “[t]oday, the typical woman who works full-time earns 79 cents for every dollar that a typical man makes.”
He knew that he was misusing statistics. He has been made aware of the debunkings of the 79¢ myth. And he understood; he’s no dummy.
The stat is not about “equal pay for equal work.” It aggregates incomes. There is no job-for-job equality and no consideration of real wages (with benefits, for instance). It is just that women-as-a-class take home less pay than men-as-a-class, per capita.
“It is known,” as was said on Game of Thrones.
The lie continues because of America’s “game of thrones.”
Minding my own business — well, maybe not so much . . . except that “mankind is my business” — I joined Hong Kong’s Global Anti-Totalitarianism Rally.
Is there a more important cause than preventing totalitarian regimes from crushing more lives?
Arriving at the city government complex, I discovered that protesters were marching from another location and would not be there for another 30 minutes or so.
“Hey, I have a plane to catch!” I thought to myself.
Protests are not always punctual.
A convoy of police buses left, leaving press people speculating on whether they were headed to block protesters from getting to the government center at all. Thankfully, about an hour later I saw marchers a block away passing city hall and headed . . . well, to be honest, I had no idea where they were headed. But I hustled up to join their ranks, nonetheless.
After walking for more than half an hour to chants of “Fight for freedom/Stand with Hong Kong,” and “Five demands/Not one less,” I realized had I better get back to the hotel, grab my bags and scoot to the airport.
So I turned around and walked past the long line of marchers, finally reaching city hall where police were set up in riot gear. A small number of protesters were there as well. Suddenly, a policeman fired a volley of tear gas. (I guess such things always seem sudden to those in their sights.) It was followed by several more rounds, which hit both in front of me and behind me.
I saw no cause for the escalation.
“Uh-oh, this is a lot of tear gas,” I realized, holding my breath as I attempted to run outside the range of the rapidly spreading gas. No surprise, but tear gas really burns your eyes — and lungs, too, making it difficult to breathe.
Now it really hit home just how right-on my Friday commentary was to laud Alex Ko, the Taiwanese fellow who raised money to send 2,000 gas mask kits to HK protesters.
As I exited the cloud of smoke, a young man wearing a gas mask came up to me and told me, “Breathe.” It was sound advice.
I was carrying a bottle of water and poured it into both eyes soaking my “Got Liberty?” t-shirt. Which helped a great deal. (I mean the water, not the shirt.)
Another protester handed me a pre-packaged vial of sterilized water. Yet another gave me something labeled “Disposable Surgical Earloop Face Mask.” Neither was effective, frankly, but I certainly appreciated their concern. (And I kept the items as souvenirs.)
Getting back to the hotel was not so simple, either. The subway stations in the surrounding area had been closed by police. And there was a dearth of available taxis. After walking for ten minutes or so, I finally found one and left.
I made my flight, barely, jetting to the greater freedom of Taiwan, and to the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy where I’m speaking later this week.
Some wonder why I would take this risk. Well, if these brave young people can continually take much larger risks to fight tyranny, I feel compelled to take much smaller risks to support them. I’m honored to have been with them, to stand with them. Even to cough and gasp and tear up with them.
Those are the tears of future freedom . . . I certainly hope.
